What a fun day we had today! Marianna, Courtney, Mrs. Hallberg, Carly, Jasmine and I started our day off with a breakfast of watermelon, mango, and mac and cheese from Miss MIriam. We changed into our scrubs and took the long walk to the community center at 8 AM. We met to walk over to the United Pentecostal School where we began our projects with the kids. Ella, Marianna, and I (the exercise group!) teamed up with Sahib, Erin and Avery (the nutrition group)to teach standard 1, 2 and 3 classes (like 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders) about healthy living. Each class was an hour so for the first half, Erin and Sahib taught their nutrition portion with a great poster and coloring books! The students were super interactive which made for great sessions. For the second half, Ella and I led a fun “exercise” class for the kids./ We went outside to play music and play a game called freeze dance which they enjoyed. After, we did some relay races (sometimes boys vs girls) which the kids really got into! For our standard 3 class, it was storming and raining too much to play outside so we did a few exercises like stretching, running in place, and jumping jacks as well as fun games about eating healthy.
Once the rain stopped, we had to say goodbye to the kids for the day and go back to our home stays for lunch. Miss Miriam made some very good spaghetti and when we found out the rain from the storm had soaked our beds, Miss Miriam replaced everything!! She is so kind and I am so grateful to be welcomed into her home.
After a nice 2-hour break, we returned to the community center at 3 PM. We reflected on the morning briefly and go started on changes/improvements to our projects. Ella, Mariana, and I began a new routine for our exercise class at 4 PM. Because kids came the last time on Monday, we made our dance more fun with easier moves but still a good workout. It was a huge success and about 10-12 girls came to the stage right next to the community center where we exercised. We did it a few times and danced to the music and even a few more girls came. Afterward, we handed out the water bottles, pedometers and explained the book to track everything. One little boy, Carlito, filled up his water bottle a few times and tracked it in the book and one of the girls, Alita, did some exercises from the book in her front yard! After some play time, we said goodbye and we headed to the Pentecostal School to play a fun game of soccer against each other. It got a little competitive as Ms. Nasimiyu slide tackled me and some balls hit some faces – but it was very fun!!!
We had our reflection with roses and thorns and emotional and physical check-ins then we went back to our home stays for dinner. MIss Miriam made us rice and beans, BBQ chicken, and fried plantains and itw as amazing! We went back to the restaurant at 8:30 PM to play some cards and then returned home later to sleep. Good night from Belize!